Wood Chip Mulch

We are starting a mulched garden, also called a Back to Eden garden. To do that, we need wood chips – but we will have to make our own. Photo by J&J

Well, there was bad news today – Jennifer is under the weather. But, having to stay home to keep the kids away as she gets better is a perfect opportunity to get some wood chipping done!

Need Wood Chips

So we last left you saying we were going to mulch up rabbit manure and place down wood chips. The rabbit manure will go very quickly, but the amount of wood chips we need is… a bit daunting. So, best to work on it every day we get.

Today I fell the trees while the kids worked on the limbs. The focus was on trees that will fit through our chipper – 3.5″, so the limbs were mostly able to be taken off with garden loppers. Then two piles were made, one for the chipper, and one for the shredder hopper.

Our children love to play in the woods. Giving them tools they can use to chop up stick is just an added bonus. Photo by J&J

Pesky vines

The area we were clearing is right on the wood line, so it was a bit of a pain. Vines were all over the trees, making it hard to fell tall trees were I wanted. For the small ones, their canopies were just high enough that we still had to make the cut, then drag the tree out, playing tug-of-war with the vines.

I fought the vines – and I won. We would have got a lot further today if we had been working IN the woods, but alas, you have to get to the inside before you can cut the inside.

Results

Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the cuttings are still waiting to be chipped. The chipper ran out of gas and at that point I knew I did not have it in me to drive 2 miles for gas and actually want to keep going once I returned. So we cleaned up and enjoyed the fruits of our labors.

We chipped the wood near the area where the trees were felled and the towed them to the garden area using our lawn mower. Photo by J&J

We toted away 5 garden carts full of chips. The cart says it holds 5.5 cubic feet, so that is roughly 27.5 cubic feet, but the loads were “heaping”, and we did chip more than we actually collected (there was some left on the ground that was not worth trying to rake up, which is good news for that part of the lawn).

That said, we are supposed to get 4-6 inches of chips on top of the garden. So, if the little tool I found is accurate, we can cover an area between 9×9 or 10×10. Our entire garden is ~16×26.

So, to do the math for you, we have about 5 more of these sessions in order to cover the whole thing in 4 inches of chips. Of course, we still have the cuttings that haven’t been chipped. But still, I am pretty happy with these results.

For 1 tank of gas and oil for the chainsaw and 1 tank of gas for the chipper, we have 1/5 of the garden covered.

The pile of mulch we made. It was a lot of work, but when the mulch is spread out it actually does cover a large area. Photo by J&J

I have to admit, if you look at the pile, it does not look like it will cover that much area. However, to have seen the pile on the output of the chipper, I did not expect for it to take 2 loads in the garden cart to move it. So… we shall see!

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Thanks for the comment Annie – it is a good bit of work [ but I could use it 🙂 ]. We just could not wait around any longer hoping for some free wood chips to be delivered. It was time to take matters in to our own hands!

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